“This lack of coordination has been one of the biggest weaknesses of the Goa Congress. An alliance requires trust, communication and a common strategy. If Congress leaders cannot speak with one voice within their own party, convincing smaller parties to trust them will be an uphill task.
Then comes the biggest contradiction.
Congress has revived its Fatorda bloc at a time when it is supposed to be strengthening its relationship with Goa Forward Party. Fatorda is not an ordinary constituency. It is the political backyard of GFP president Vijai Sardesai, who has repeatedly positioned himself as an important Opposition force in Goa.”
Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge has once again called for all like-minded parties to come together to defeat the Bharatiya Janata Party. On paper, the proposition sounds logical. If the BJP is to be challenged effectively, Opposition parties cannot afford to divide the anti-BJP vote. But in Goa, the bigger question is not whether an alliance is desirable. It is whether the Congress has the political discipline and internal trust required to make such an alliance work.
Before Kharge begins stitching together a national Opposition coalition, the Congress needs to look within its own house in Goa.
The party has three MLAs, Yuri Alemao, Altone D’Costa and Carlos Alvares Ferreira. Yet, at times, the statements coming from the three appear to be heading in different directions. The state Congress president Girish Chodankar has his own political messaging. Instead of presenting a united political narrative, the party often gives the impression of several Congresses operating simultaneously.
This lack of coordination has been one of the biggest weaknesses of the Goa Congress. An alliance requires trust, communication and a common strategy. If Congress leaders cannot speak with one voice within their own party, convincing smaller parties to trust them will be an uphill task.
Then comes the biggest contradiction.
Congress has revived its Fatorda bloc at a time when it is supposed to be strengthening its relationship with Goa Forward Party. Fatorda is not an ordinary constituency. It is the political backyard of GFP president Vijai Sardesai, who has repeatedly positioned himself as an important Opposition force in Goa.
If Congress is genuinely interested in an alliance with Sardesai, why create a political structure that can be interpreted as a direct challenge to him in his own constituency?
Politics is ultimately about signals. The revival of the Fatorda bloc sends a signal of competition, not cooperation.
Then there is the complicated Congress-AAP relationship. At the national level, AAP leaders, including Arvind Kejriwal, have often been sharply critical of the Congress and Rahul Gandhi. In Goa, meanwhile, AAP has two sitting MLAs, Captain Venzy Viegas and Cruz Silva, both of whom have been the subject of speculation about their political future and their proximity to Congress.
This creates another uncomfortable question. Is Congress looking for a genuine alliance with AAP, or is it simply waiting for AAP’s political space in Goa to collapse and its MLAs to move elsewhere?
An alliance cannot be built on assumptions that the partner will eventually disappear.
And then there is the Revolutionary Goans Party.
Congress must first decide which RGP it wants to deal with. Is it the faction associated with MLA Viresh Borkar, or the faction represented by former party president Manoj Parab? The RGP has gone through considerable internal turmoil and appears to have lost much of the political momentum it once enjoyed.
Yet Congress cannot approach alliances as an exercise in collecting names. An alliance is meaningful only when every partner brings organisation, votes, credibility and a clearly defined political constituency.
The BJP benefits enormously when its opponents remain divided. But defeating the BJP cannot simply become a slogan repeated before every election. It requires painstaking seat level negotiations, clarity over leadership, a common minimum programme and, most importantly, the willingness to sacrifice seats for the larger objective.
Kharge’s call is therefore politically correct but insufficient.
Congress must first repair its own internal communication. It must decide whether Goa Forward is a partner or a competitor. It must clarify its relationship with AAP. It must understand whether RGP remains a viable political force and, above all, stop sending contradictory signals to potential allies.
The 2027 Goa Assembly election will not be won merely by adding Opposition parties on paper. It will be won by building trust among them.
At present, the Congress has a bigger problem than finding allies. It has to convince existing and potential allies that it can be trusted.
Until that happens, Kharge’s grand Opposition unity formula may remain more of a Delhi strategy than a workable Goa reality.
